According to the Telework Research Network, productivity increases by 27 percent among those who workshift. This statistic should be of great interest to employers everywhere, as productivity, or the lack thereof, is one of the biggest challenges they face today.

Whenever you are responsible for a workforce, you encounter many varied obstacles to motivating your team sufficiently towards your established goals. New employees may be enthusiastic and dedicated, but it invariably doesn’t take long before a certain amount of lethargy sets in, and productivity starts to drop. If the employees share a common workspace, then what’s the problem? Is this some kind of condition that permeates from one workstation to another?

Many books have been written over the years about how to motivate employees and manage effectively, but perhaps these books are missing the most significant chapters. It’s possible that the solution to low productivity in traditional office workspaces is to actually remove the workspace altogether. This is where workshifting can slowly but surely come to the rescue of floundering organizations.

The same research network that suggests that employees are considerably more productive when workshifting also suggests that employers can save up to $20,000 per employee yearly by eliminating the workspace. The savings are obvious: no more direct and overhead costs associated with each and every workstation. Furthermore, if the employees themselves are happier and more productive in their new environments, turnover will be reduced, meaning less hiring and training expenditures.

Companies that embrace workshifting have shown that employee attrition can be lowered by as much as 25 percent. To top it off, the new, more educated and informed employee tends to look for organizations that offer this kind of flexibility in the first place.

The writing is on the wall when you look at all these figures collectively. It’s time to change the culture of oversight by trusting employees to be as productive as, or even more productive than, they were before. Whether we like it or not, productivity is always going to suffer if the employee is not as inspired or motivated as they could be.

When an employer actually gives an employee the freedom to workshift, trust that may have been missing before is established. This can, in turn, exponentially improve the relationship between both parties – each side stands to gain.

About amandaalexander

Great article – I had not heard of workshifting before, but now feel enlightened and thinking about how to implement this at our workplace. Thanks.

KamaT

A couple years spent consulting taught me that I am much, much more productive first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, when an employer requires that I be in an office from 9-5, the employer takes my most energetic and focused time, and forces me to use it (waste it) to make myself look presentable to go in to an office and then commute.

I’d love a situation that allows me to come in to an office once or twice a week to use the resources there (largely, a mailroom), and then work from home the rest of the week. With the understanding that if I start at 7 am, I’ll knock off for the day around 3 pm.

Marisol Diaz-Sanchez

Being a Virtual Assistant I can fully understand the concept, also know as ‘telecomute’ . Definitely the future business community will be handling business this way as the globalization allows companies to hire from anywhere in the world to expand their businesses.

Great article and presentation. Let’s start implementing it!

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Workshifting / Telecommuting works well for us. Good article.

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If you work out of coffee shops, hotels, airports and your home every bit as much as the office, workshifting.com is for you.

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If you work out of coffee shops, hotels, airports and your home every bit as much as the office, workshifting.com is for you. We share resources on telecommuting, online tools, travel, technology, business & virtual offices to help you shift when, where & how you work. Workshifting.com is powered by Citrix. Read more...